Suliban Cell Ship

Recent ships in the collection have mostly been one episode only ships or seen only briefly in two or three episodes. The Suliban cell ships have appeared in at least half a dozen Enterprise episodes so it’s a surprise it has taken so long for one to appear in the collection. I know it has been discussed for some time. Perhaps the reason is down to its particularly unimaginative design, simpler even than a Borg cube or sphere.

It is small rusty-orange coloured ship, the size of a shuttlecraft, and built to hold only one crew member. The premise is these cell ships are able to connect together to build huge structures in space. That certainly explains the geometrically simple design, able to tessellate with others. Unfortunately it is not a particularly impressive ship to look at. The model is made of three parts: two plastic halves of the hull and a metal layer between the two. The plastic halves are totally identical which is of course entirely accurate whilst keeping the costs down. As the ship is shuttlecraft sized the detailing is quite basic being simple recessed panels. To make matters worse the whole ship is the same colour with mottling in some places. At least it is a very sturdy model as I knocked it on the floor without causing any damage. There are few other models that I could do that to.

I don’t want to dwell on this model much. I can’t blame Eaglemoss for this as I feel this is an entirely appropriate ship to include in the collection but it’s just too plain boring. After the last issue’s dissapointing ECS Horizon I’m desperate for a decent model. Nil desperandum – the next issue is a good one!

All valid points – it is a ship which is seen multiple times, and by design is dead-drop boring. So no fault of EM. Perhaps it would have been nicer (if more expensive to manufacture) if the two halves could have been metal, with a plastic sandwich in between. As noted in previous reviews, the plastic molding does not show detail as sharply as metal, and I think this does let down the cell ship. Not that it could improve it much.